SEND IN THE CLOWNS ~ JUDY COLLINS

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Grammy Song Of the Year 1976
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"Send in the Clowns" is a song by Stephen Sondheim from the 1973 musical A Little Night Music, an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night. It is a ballad from Act II in which the character Desirée reflects on the ironies and disappointments of her life. Among other things, she looks back on an affair years earlier with the lawyer Fredrik. Meeting him after so long, she finds that he is now in an unconsummated marriage with a much younger woman. Desirée proposes marriage to rescue him from this situation, but he declines, citing his dedication to his bride. Reacting to his rejection, Desirée sings this song. The song is later reprised as a coda after Fredrik's young wife runs away with his son, and Fredrik is finally free to accept Desirée's offer. Sondheim wrote the song specifically for the actress Glynis Johns, who created the role of Desirée on Broadway. The song is structured with four verses and a bridge, and uses a complex triple meter. It became Sondheim's most popular song after Judy Collins and Frank Sinatra recorded it in 1975. In 1975, Judy Collins recorded "Send In the Clowns" and included it in her album, Judith. The song was released as a single, which soon became a major pop hit. It remained on the Billboard Hot 100 for 11 weeks in 1975, reaching Number 36. Then, in 1977, the song again reached the Billboard Hot 100, where it remained for 16 weeks and reached Number 19. At the Grammy Awards of 1976, the Judy Collins performance of the song was named "Song of the Year".

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. Rules are simple. Leave ONLY the actual post link here and grab the code below and place it at your blog entry. You can grab this code at LadyJava's Lounge Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

THE SHADOW OF YOUR SMILE ~ TONY BENNETT

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Grammy Song Of the Year 1966
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"The Shadow of Your Smile", also known as "Love Theme from The Sandpiper", is a popular song. The music was written by Johnny Mandel with the lyrics written by Paul Francis Webster. The song was introduced in the 1965 film The Sandpiper with a trumpet solo by Jack Sheldon and later became a minor hit for Tony Bennett (Johnny Mandel arranged and conducted his version as well). It won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year and the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Tony Bennett re-recorded this song for his album Duets: An American Classic with Colombian-rock singer Juanes in a "Spanglish" version. This marked the first time that Juanes sang in English and Tony Bennett in Spanish.Carly Smithson performed "The Shadow of Your Smile" on Season 7 of American Idol during the top 24 performances. It was released for download from the iTunes store on February 21, 2008.

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Grammy Song of the Year 1966 Nominees

• "I Will Wait for You" by Connie Francis
• "The September of My Years" by Frank Sinatra
• "Yesterday" by The Beatles
• "King of the Road" by Roger Miller

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DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES ~ ANDY WILLIAMS

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Grammy Song Of the Year 1963
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"Days of Wine and Roses" is a popular song, from the 1962 movie of the same name. The music was written by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. They received the Academy Award for Best Original Song for their work. The song is composed of only two sentences, one for each stanza. The best-known recording of the song was by Andy Williams in 1963, but several other recording artists have done the song, including Perry Como, composer Henry Mancini and the famous guitarist Wes Montgomery (1963: Boss Guitar) and Canadian virtuoso Lenny Breau. Andy Williams' version was recorded for Columbia Records. It was released as catalog number 42674. The song reached #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and was the featured track of an album by Williams of the same name, which was a #1-charting album on the Billboard album charts.


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Grammy Song of the Year 1963 Nominees

• "Call Me Irresponsible" by Frank Sinatra
• "The Good Life" by Tony Bennett
• "I Wanna Be Around" by Tony Bennett
• "Wives and Lovers" by Jack Jones

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Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. Rules are simple. Leave ONLY the actual post link here and grab the code below and place it at your blog entry. You can grab this code at LadyJava's Lounge Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

THEME FROM EXODUS ~ ERNEST GOLD

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Grammy Song Of the Year 1961
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Exodus is a 1960 epic war film made by Alpha and Carlyle Productions and distributed by United Artists. It was produced and directed by Otto Preminger from a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo from the 1958 novel, Exodus, by Leon Uris. The Super Panavision 70 cinematography was by Sam Leavitt. The music, including the frequently covered title theme, was written by Ernest Gold. The main theme from the film has been widely remixed and covered by many artists. A version by Ferrante & Teicher went all the way to number 2 on the Billboard Singles Chart. Another notable version was recorded by jazz saxophonist Eddie Harris. Other versions were recorded by Mantovani, Peter Nero, Connie Francis, and the Duprees, who sang the theme with lyrics written by Pat Boone. Other artists include Gospel pianist Anthony Burger (in the Gaither Vocal Band's "I Do Believe"), singer Edith Piaf who used french lyrics, Classical pianist Maksim Mrvica and T.I. as a sample for Bankhead. Trey Spruance of the Secret Chiefs 3 rescored the theme for "surf band and orchestra" on the album 2004 Book of Horizons. Howard Stern uses it for comedic effect when discussing aspects of Jewish life. A sample of the Exodus was used also in Ice-T´s song Exodus from the Album 7 Deadly Sin, and Nas's song "You're Da Man" from the album Stillmatic. A portion of the main title was included in a montage arranged by composer John Williams and performed at the 2002 Academy Awards ceremony.

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Grammy Song of the Year 1961 Nominees

• "He'll Have to Go" by Jim Reeves
• "Nice 'n' Easy" by Frank Sinatra
• "Second Time Around" by Andy Williams
• "Theme from A Summer Place" by Percy Faith

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THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS

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Grammy Song Of the Year 1960
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"The Battle of New Orleans" is the name of a song written by Jimmie Driftwood. The song details the 1815 Battle of New Orleans from the perspective of an American fighting alongside Andrew Jackson against British forces, but the tone is lighthearted. It has been recorded by many artists, but the one most often associated with this song is Johnny Horton. His version topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1959 (see 1959 in music). In Billboard magazine's rankings of the top songs in the first fifty years of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, "The Battle of New Orleans" was ranked as the twenty-eighth song overall and the number-one country song to appear on the chart. The melody has its roots in a well-known American fiddle tune "The 8th of January", which was the date of the Battle of New Orleans. Jimmie Driftwood, a school principal in Arkansas with a passion for history, set a historical account of the battle to this music in an attempt to get students interested in learning history. It worked, and Driftwood became well known in the region for his historical songs. He was "discovered" in the late 1950s by Don Warden, and eventually signed to a recording contract by RCA, for whom he recorded 12 songs in 1958, including "The Battle of New Orleans".

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Grammy Song of the Year 1960 Nominees

• High Hope by Frank Sinatra
  
• I Know by Perry Como
  
• Like Young by Andre Previn
  
• Small World by Johny Mathis
  

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VOLARE ~ BY DOMENICO MODUGNO

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Grammy Song Of the Year 1959
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"Nel blu dipinto di blu" ("In the blue, painted blue"), popularly known as "Volare" (Italian for the infinitive form of the verb "to fly"), is Domenico Modugno's signature song. Modugno's recording became the first Grammy winner for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1958. It is the only foreign-language recording to achieve this honor. It spent five non-consecutive weeks atop the Hot 100 in August and September 1958 and was Billboard's number-one single for the year. It is one of only three one-hit wonders to become single of the year in the history of the Hot 100 (followed by "Stranger on the Shore" by Acker Bilk in 1962 and "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter in 2006). The song became widely known as "Volare", from its refrain, and reached the top of the charts all over the world through translations into various languages: "Воларе (Volare)" in Russian; "Dans le bleu du ciel bleu" in French, "En el azul del cielo" in Spain, "Jouw ogen" in Belgium, "Taivaan sinessä" in Finland and "Azul pintado de azul" in Brazil and Latin America.

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Grammy Song of the Year 1959 Nominees

• Catch a Falling Star By Perry Como
  
• Fever by Peggy Lee
• Theme to Gigi by Various Artist
• Witchcraft by Frank Sinatra

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IF ~ BREAD

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Bluedreamer's Choice No 34

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"If" is a song written by American singer-songwriter David Gates in 1971. Originally popularized by his group Bread, the song charted at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 when released as a single in 1971. The song also spent three weeks at number one on the Easy Listening chart . It was quickly covered by other singers (including Petula Clark, Cleo Laine, Frank Sinatra, Jack Jones, Perry Como , Telly Savalas, Shirley Bassey, Westlife and Frankmusik). It was also covered by Damien Leith on his album Catch the Wind: Songs of a Generation, which was released in 2008. The Telly Savalas version reached number one on the UK Singles Chart for two weeks in March 1975, and has the shortest title of any song to reach number one. "If" has been a perennial favorite at weddings (for example, as a first-dance song) ever since it was released. It was also recorded, as an album track, by Scott Walker in his early 1970s MOR period. This song is often of interest to guitarists because of the unique tremolo/wah-wah effect on the electric guitar in the intro. One San Diego, California radio station in the early 1970s reported that the effect took months to produce. However, Bread used that effect live when playing the song in their concerts.

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These Top 50 songs are based on my personal choice and are not listed in order
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HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS ~ BY FRANK SINATRA

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is a Christmas song introduced by Judy Garland in the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me in St. Louis. Frank Sinatra later recorded a version with modified lyrics, which has become more common than the original. The song was credited to Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, although during a December 21, 2006 NPR interview, Martin said that Blane had encouraged him to write the song but had not had anything more to do with writing it. In 2007, ASCAP ranked "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" the third most performed Christmas song written by ASCAP members of the past five years. In 1957, Frank Sinatra asked Martin to revise the line "Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow".

Lyrics | Frank Sinatra lyrics - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas lyrics